


All Hallows Eve

by Two_Candles



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Altmode Date Time, Creepy, Gen, Ghost Stories, Halloween, M/M, One Shot Collection, shortfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-16
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-26 14:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5008051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Two_Candles/pseuds/Two_Candles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of unconnected oneshots taking place on or around Halloween. Tags will be updated as chapters are added. Ch 1: Knock Out has interesting taste in movies. Ch 2: Ghost stories at the Autobot base. Ch. 3: A haunting (heed the warnings!).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Late Night Double Feature

**Description** : Because Halloween is the perfect time for a Surprise Altmode Date Night. KO/BD.

" _This_ is the place?" It shouldn't have been possible for an APC to look sceptical, but Breakdown was somehow managing it. He definitely _sounded_ it through the private comlink he and Knock Out were sharing. They were parked side by side in a sea of other vehicles, all of them containing humans, watching the stars come out above the darkened hills. Breakdown sent out a low-level ping, feeling it wash fruitlessly over the assembled cars, the tall fabric screen and the little wooden shack. "What's here that's worth another shouting match with 'Lord' Starscream?" 

"Be patient," Knock Out crooned inside his processor. "And relax. There hasn't been anything that required our attention in days. We'll never be missed." He shifted minutely, chassis slinging a little lower as he himself relaxed. "Besides, it's a nice night, perfect for a little mindless entertainment. Just keep your weapon subspaced and your windows tinted."

Breakdown's response was the mental equivalent of a shrug, but he settled in, tires adjusting on the asphalt. "If they didn't notice anything when we came in, I don't think they're gonna notice anything now."

Getting past the tiny gatehouse had, in fact, been pathetically easy - a single brief frequency jamming pulse, and all the car radios in the place began spitting static. As soon as the disgruntled fleshie selling tickets left the booth to find the source of the problem, they had simply slipped by. Breakdown had been curious about the sign in front - "'Halloween Classic Double Feature - Machine Mayhem'? What is that?" - but Knock Out had promised that all would be explained inside. Now, however, Breakdown was coming to suspect that he had no intention of explaining anything. Well, let him have his surprise.

There was a sudden flicker of light, and an illuminated image appeared on the fabric screen. "It's starting!" Knock Out sounded oddly giddy. "Turn on your radio."

"What?"

"This frequency," was the reply, accompanied by an info packet. Breakdown gamely tuned his vehicle radio to the listed numbers, and music filled his cab. After a moment, the images outside and sound inside coalesced into a single thing, and he suddenly understood.

"A human movie?"

"Mmhm. You'll enjoy it, I promise." Knock Out's mental voice had the singsong tone that meant that he was pleased with what he'd managed to get away with. Breakdown felt him subtly edging closer, until their wheel wells almost touched. On the screen, the parade of words had been replaced by an image of a vehicle assembly line. A human appeared to tinker with a car on the line before the vehicle suddenly slammed its hood on his arm. Knock Out chuckled.

"This one's about a cute little number that kills humans by the truckload." Another subtle shift, and now their tires were snugged close. Breakdown tensed, pulling away slightly.

"Why?"

"Why what?" Knock Out sounded affronted.

"Why sneak out just for this?"

"I wanted to," came the flippant reply. There was silence for a moment. Then, almost softly, "I'm not allowed to take you out once in awhile?"

Breakdown thought for a moment. _Well...Huh._ Slowly he relaxed, letting his front tires brush against the other's again. "Sure, why not?"

"Oh good." And just like that, Knock Out was content again. "You'll like the one that comes after, too - there's a bit in it where a couple of nice glossy semis run down some skinjobs."

"Heh."

**Notes:** I couldn't resist this combo of movies, and I'm sure some drive-in somewhere has run them together. Both films are based on Stephen King novels - the first is 'Christine,' which Knock Out seems to have missed the point of but which does feature a car killing people in nasty ways, and the second is 'Maximum Overdrive,' which is really more about appliances murdering people but does contain the scene mentioned. Nice date movies for Decepticons :D.


	2. Ghost Stories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Smokescreen tells a ghost story. Jack is unnerved.

"Alright, what kind of story am I telling next?" Jack looked around at the circle (made up of two young humans and one enormous robot) expectantly, flashlight held under his chin. "Any requests?"

"Ooo, tell one with zombies! With lots of blood and guts and aaaahhrrrrrggg!" Miko flailed her arms around for emphasis, almost upsetting the jack-o-lantern which glowed softly in the middle of their group. Jack winced slightly, and he and Raf looked out across the room to where Arcee was reading a data pad. He shook his head. Miko looked serious for a moment, then nodded.

"Okay, no zombies. Werewolves?"

"What-wolves?" Smokescreen lifted his head from where it rested on his arms, looking quizzical. He had lain flat on his abdomen in order to better hear the stories, and had so far been listening with a mixture of confusion and rapt interest. " I don't think I get this holiday. "

"Halloween used to be a time when people believed that spirits came back to the world of the living," Raf explained. "People wore costumes to confuse the ghosts and demons they thought would take them away. These days it's mostly an excuse to get candy from your neighbors."

"And for freaky movies and ghost stories! And you better not tell a lame story, Jack." Miko crossed her arms. 

Jack gave her an amused look. "What, like your story was any good?" Miko had already been banned from storytelling after her first attempt, "The Super-Gross Demon Vampire Metalheads that Totally Want to Eat Your Heart and Maybe Your Eyeballs Too," got hopelessly off-track.

"Ghost stories? Like a spark ghost?" Smokescreen looked even more puzzled. "I didn’t know humans had anything like that."

"Wait, what's a spark ghost?" Raf sat up on his knees, intrigued. He had dressed for trick-or-treating, but had chosen instead to join the others for their impromptu party (Bee had been a little worried by the fangs that were part of Raf's Dracula costume, until he was reassured that they were removable and not some kind of modification). He hadn't seemed to pay much attention to the previous stories, but now he was alert. "Are there ghosts on Cybertron?"

"Well, yeah - at least the older guardsmechs said so. I've never seen one myself." Smokescreen scrunched up his faceplates in thought. "I dunno if it's anything like what you have, though."

"Wait, really?" Miko leaned forward on hands and knees, a bright expression on her face. "You guys have for real ghosts? That haunt the living and everything?"

"Yep!" Smokescreen, realizing he now had an audience, grinned and sat upright. "Okay, they say-" He broke off abruptly, looking around. "Hang on." He clambered up and trotted across the room to where Ratchet was working. After a whispered conversation, and quite a bit of irritated gesturing from the old medic, Smokescreen returned with a cylinder in his hand. "Okay," he said, and held the device under his chin. His face was suddenly illuminated from below with an eerie blue light that cast his cheek and brow plates in harsh shadow. His optics glowed mischievously out of the gloom. 

"So, they say that there was once a Decepticon that was so evil, so depraved, that his spark was filled with nothing but darkness. There was no terrible deed, no act of betrayal he wouldn't commit. Even his own comrades called him the spawn of Unicron, and no matter how many times he was defeated, he could never be destroyed." Smokescreen's usual rapid-fire speech was slowed, his voice lowered and ominous. " Then one day, his own leader tried to terminate him - turned his whole body to ash, dissolving him slowly, slowly until nothing but his pedes remained. But his wicked spark couldn't be extinguished, and he haunted his mausoleum, a horrible creature lurking in the shadows of graves, waiting for a living mech to come near so that he could steal their frame!" He waved the digits of his free hand about, optics wide. " And at last, a damaged ship approached his lonely resting place, looking for a place to make repairs..."

As the story went on, Jack thought he saw a change come over the bot. Gradually the exaggerated gestures and drawn-out syllables trailed off. Instead, Smokescreen became more and more serious, his tone shading from cheery to strangely harsh. The story, too, grew darker and much more gory. While it was still a very simple tale, it was now filled with the mechs possessed by the ghost inflicting terrible wounds on their companions. Jack peered up at Smokescreen uncertainly. The flickering orange light of the jack-o-lantern at his feet and the spectral blue that lit his face seemed to now illuminate a grim statue, impossibly ancient and stern. 

"...and even though energon gushed from his wounds, and his internal components hung from his body in mangled, sparking clumps, he was relieved, as they were finally free of the vengeful ghost. Or so they thought!" Smokescreen's optics were narrow and hard, and his voice, which had dropped to a near-whisper, took on a rough edge. "As his optics grew blurry, and his audials filled with static, he thought he saw the ghastly form that had enslaved him covering his companion. He reached out a shaking hand, but it was too late. As he dropped offline forever, he heard the high, terrible laugh of the ghost burst from the mouth of his friend, and he know that every mech on the ship was doomed to a slow, grisly deactivation." He fell silent, looking around the group. Jack stared up at his face, unsettled. It now felt like the friend who helped him with epic pranks and laughed with him at stupid jokes had slowly been replaced. In his place was an implacable titan, a fearsome and alien warrior. 

_And it's true,_ Jack realized. _That's what he is, what they all are._ He shivered, feeling terribly small - but at that moment the flashlight switched off and Smokescreen grinned, dropping back down to lie on his abdomen and kicking his pedes behind him. "So how was that?" he asked, optics wide and delighted through the candlelight. 

Jack looked at the other two. Miko had an indulgent smile on her face, while Raf had curled in on himself slightly, eyes wide. "Hey Smokescreen," their youngest member asked softly, "is that story real? Are there really spark ghosts?"

"Sure are. Ask Ratchet, he'll tell you." Smokescreen smiled as Raf untangled himself from his costume cape and set off across the floor, calling for Ratchet. Miko stretched, yawning hugely, and looked at Jack.

"Wanna hear the story about the crazy psychopath who had a hook for a hand and ate teenagers?" she asked with a grin. Jack shook his head. "Pass."

"Boo." Miko stood and looked at her phone, then around the room. "Bulkhead! 'Eight-Eyed Terror from the Black Lagoon' is almost on! Wanna watch?"

"Coming!" The green mech's voice echoed from deep in the base. Miko jogged up the loft steps, leaving Jack and Smokescreen with the jack-o-lantern. 

"Bee's going to give you a hard time if you actually scared Raf, you know," Jack said with a smile. Smokescreen looked chagrined. 

"Yeah, I probably overdid it." He rubbed the back of his head, a strangely human gesture. "It was a good story though, wasn't it?"

"It was," Jack said quietly. "You even managed to scare me a little." He peered into the jack-o-lantern, then softly blew out the flame.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Honestly, I don't think this one is as good as the first one, but I still like the idea, so there you go. As I'm sure is obvious, Smokescreen's ghost story is cribbed from The Movie and from the G1 episode "Starscream's Ghost." Somewhat modified, however - all good ghost stories contain embellishment :). Also, Miko's ghost stories seem to contain a lot of people being eaten, now that I look at it.


	3. Presence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Starscream is visited by three ghosts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up! This is much darker in tone than the rest of this collection. **Warnings** for strong robo-gore, something resembling night terrors, some unfriendly ghosts, and a very brief mention of empurata (I don't really know if I need to warn for that, but I know it freaks me out, so I wanted to err on the side of caution). This is intended to be creepy, but since I don’t ever write horror, I don’t know if it is. We’ll see if I succeeded. 
> 
> This largely came about as a result of my wondering what the hell ever happened to Thundercracker and Skywarp between _War for Cybertron_ and _TFP_. Since the game and the series are (loosely) in the same continuity, they seem to have just disappeared in between. I don't have any strong established idea for where they are, so they might show up in later fics, but for the purposes of this one, they were killed at some point in the intervening time.

He didn't know where they had got the idea - some appalling organic thing, most likely - but there was a group of ground troopers gathered in one of the common areas, telling stories. Stories! Apparently they were attempting to frighten each other. He would be happy, he thought as he approached them, to give them something to be afraid of. 

"... and when he woke up, he reached up to touch his aching processor... but his hands were gone! They had been replaced with horrible, pinching claws!" The storytelling Vehicon made an exaggerated gesture; behind him, two others made gestures that were considerably more rude. "He tried to feel around with them, to touch his faceplates - but they were gone! He had no mouth, only a single, staring optic! And..." He trailed off as he turned to see Starscream stalking towards the group. "Um, Commander!"

"So, you have time to loiter and _chat_ , I see." He leaned in, forcing the trooper to back up. "What, exactly, prompted this foolishness?"

"We-" The trooper seemed to be trying to make himself look smaller, "patrol told us about a festival they saw the organics had, and-"

"- and you thought that some _primitive celebration_ practiced on a _mud-soaked rock_ was an appropriate distraction for Cybertronian warriors," Starscream finished for him. The trooper quailed. 

"Patrol said it was to celebrate the dead visiting the living," a different mech piped up. Starscream rounded on him, and he shrank back in turn.

"I don't _care_ what it's for!" Now truly agitated, Starscream lashed out, striking the nearest Vehicon. He fell back into the group, which quickly dispersed around him. "If I find any of you shirking again, I'll deactivate all of you myself!" The Vehicons fled, and Starscream resumed his path, grumbling to himself as he went. "Useless drones, no wonder I can never get anything done around here..."

As irritating as it had been, the matter quickly dropped from his mind as he went about his tasks, and he recalled it only as he prepared for recharge. Settling in on the berth and shuttering his optics against the already-dim lighting in his quarters, for a moment Starscream recalled what the troopers had said. He shifted uneasily. "Hmf. The dead are gone, and not my concern."

It was the crackle of energy that woke him, the buzz and snap of damaged internal components exposed to the air. As his optics came online, the pixels in front of him resolved themselves into ragged, jagged metal and arcing light, centered on emptiness. A frame, he realized with sudden fear, a frame with a hole punched roughly though. Slowly his gaze drew away from the vicious wound and traveled up the ashy plating, to meet the glowing eyes of Dreadwing.

_"You!"_ Starscream hissed. Panicking, he struggled to rise, but his joints seemed to freeze as the other loomed over him. "What is this!? I saw you go offline myself, terminated before my own optics!"

"Yes," the dead mech hissed, "I paid the price for your treachery, before your very optics!"

Shivering, Starscream tried to rally. "What- whatever you are, why come to me? I didn't terminate you! That was your 'one true master!'"

"For you!" Dreadwing growled, and energon began to flow from his wound. "Our lord made me a sacrifice to save your traitorous spark!"

Starscream paused in his attempt to get away, and a wicked grin crept over his face. "Yes, for _me_. Clearly, Lord Megatron realized my true worth while I was away. He had no use for your... brutish ways once I returned." His smile quickly vanished as the spectre gave an inarticulate howl of rage and lunged forward. Starscream whimpered and tried again to force his useless limbs into action, but Dreadwing stilled and tilted his head suddenly, almost as if listening to a comm channel, then stepped back.

"It appears that there are others who may have more of a claim to your worthless frame than I. Let us hear what they have to say."

"What...?" Starscream's optics were drawn to movement in the shadowed corner of his quarters. Slowly, as if emerging from a fog, he saw two forms approach.

"No... _No!_ Stay back!" Starscream's engine whirred and strained as he tried desperately to transform, to bring weapons systems online, anything, anything to prevent this, but he remained rooted to the berth. 

"He never did want us around, did he TC?" Skywarp's voice was rough and sticky - as he drew close, Starscream saw with horror that energon bubbled from his lips. One of his arms hung sparking from a single cable, and a gash across his abdominal plating boiled with wires and coolant. He slowly approached the berth, the second figure trailing behind. 

"Mmm, he hated us even when we saved his plating over and over." Thundercracker came into view, a shriek of metal following as one of his legs dragged limply behind him. His left wing hung at an unnatural angle, covered in filth and oil and energon, and one of his optics was dangling from its housing by a single tangled strand. He fixed the other on Starscream. "And then he left us for scrap as soon as we were inconvenient."

"No, no, that wasn’t it! I wouldn’t!” Starscream’s voice was a nearly incoherent shriek. “You were so far away, too far across the battlefield!” 

He remembered it too clearly - the sudden shock of pain, shooting through his spark as if it had been pierced, and then the panic, the hysteria that was and wasn’t his own. He had disengaged immediately, crossing the sky like a shooting star, but a second burst of agony followed the first, and then he was spinning as if his gyros had been crushed, falling from the sky as two processes were ripped away from his own. He had died twice as he plummeted towards the rocks below, and only hard-coded protocols had prevented a final termination. When he came back to himself, it was to the sound of a general retreat, and he had fled, never daring to look back. His vents stuttered and stalled at the memory, and he was left gasping as the gruesome form of Skywarp closed in on him.

“Who sent us so far away?” Skywarp’s voice had a lilting tone, and his lips dripped blue. “Do you remember, TC?”

“Our Air Commander seemed to be afraid that we would steal his glory, Sky. He slapped you when you complained, do you remember?” Thundercracker’s low voice was a weight on Starscream’s chest. 

Skywarp had reached the side of the berth now, and leaned over his commander’s frame. “I _do_ remember that - and I remember the shot through your wing, and seeing you tumble out of my reach, over and over until you hit the ground, and I remember the hit that tore me open.” He leaned over Starscream now, face to face, and energon fell from his stained and grinning mouth. “I remember begging for help on every channel, and I remember the silence, and I remember dropping offline alone.” He was whispering now, mouth pressed to Starscream’s trembling helm. “I remember _everything_.”

Arcs of electricity shot through Starscream as he shook, his plating rattling. He could no longer even struggle, helpless against the spirits gathered around him. “Don’t,” he wailed, “ _don’t_ , didn’t I always look out for you?! I didn’t intend to hurt you, I swear it, please, please, forgive me!”

“And why should they?” Dreadwing’s voice was like a struck bell. “You would say anything to save yourself! In truth, your arrogance destroyed them, as your treachery did me. Our recompense is long overdue!” With that all three descended on him, rending his plating, grasping and tearing for his very spark-

Starscream shot upright with a piercing scream. Every alarm he possessed was shrieking, and dozens of warnings obscured his vision. His claws had sunk deep into the berth, dragging long gouges out of the metal. Shuddering, vents heaving and heat in the redline, he rose, staggering to the window. He pressed his helm to the cool glass, leaning on it with all of his weight. Slowly his core temperature dropped, slowing his vents and leaving the room in silence. Outside the window, a dark and alien world turned through the night.


End file.
